Sorrento has always had the bay with its glistening waves; now it has a dazzling restaurant that sits right on top of it.
Onda, the new coastal Mediterranean dining room built on pylons over Port Phillip Bay inside the brand-new Sorrento Ferry Terminal, is the kind of place that seems almost too good to be true with floor-to-ceiling windows, uninterrupted water views, and a pizza oven crackling at the heart of the kitchen. Executive Chef Michael Jaques says the room did half the work before he even wrote a word of the menu.
“There was actually a load of people out on the pier fishing, and I thought that this really feels like a kind of Mediterranean-style fishing village vibe,” he says. “I’ve had that experience a little bit in Italy and the south of France and Spain – these little places where they might have a pizza oven or a big fire oven, and they’re just making delicious food from what’s local, what’s around. That’s really what I wanted Onda to be.”
Michael came to cooking later than most. Growing up on a farm near Woodend, an hour north of Melbourne, he spent his early years at university before deciding, at 24, to enrol at William Angliss and train as a chef. His family, he says, were not remotely surprised.
“Everyone was like, duh,” he laughs.
From those beginnings he landed at The Press Club in Melbourne under George Calombaris, then worked with Philippe Mouchel before following his English wife to London, where he spent eight years in Michelin-starred restaurants and five-star hotels, including Claridge’s. When their eldest son reached school age, the family returned to Australia and settled on the Bellarine Peninsula, a move that would eventually bring Jaques into the orbit of Searoad Ferries, which operates the terminals at both Sorrento and Queenscliff. He has now been with the company for around a year and a half, overseeing the restaurants at both ends of the crossing.
At Onda, the philosophy flows directly from place. The menu leans into the bay’s produce and the peninsula’s growers: mussels from Flinders Mussels, bread from Miller’s Bread Kitchen, and seasonal vegetables sourced through Torello Farm, whose harvests give the kitchen a real-time read on what’s actually growing on the peninsula, rather than what’s in season somewhere else.
“What’s seasonal on the peninsula will be quite different to if you go up to the markets in Melbourne and find things that are seasonal for Mildura, or seasonal for somewhere else,” Michael says. “It’s a great thing to have a place like that where you can go and say, okay, this is what’s actually growing right here.”
The wine list doubles down on the same logic. By-the-glass pours focus on Mornington Peninsula producers, while the Queenscliff restaurant tilts toward Bellarine labels, a deliberate reflection of the ferry company’s footprint across both regions.
Even the pizzas carry a sense of history. Named after local ferries and vessels both past and present, they include the Queenscliff (roasted eggplant, capsicum, zucchini and mozzarella, Jaques’ personal favourite), the Nepean (spicy nduja, artichoke and roast capsicum) and the Farnsworth, named after the JJ Farnsworth, a vessel that once made the run between Melbourne and Sorrento.
“Searoad Ferries has been operating out of Sorrento for 38 years,” Michael says. “We do have this history that we like to draw on.”
The menu moves through the day as fluidly as the tide. Breakfast runs until 11am, giving way to a full lunch and dinner service that carries through to 8pm. Upstairs, a kiosk serves ferry passengers arriving via a gantry bridge from the top deck, but it also transforms across the day into a bar with snacks, made for watching the sun go down over the bay. Jaques’ dream, he says, is that travellers will come early, linger over lunch and cocktails, then “jump on the ferry”, making the crossing itself part of the holiday.
For all its destination appeal, Jaques is equally focused on earning the loyalty of locals, in a town where much of the hospitality trade shuts down through winter.
“The ferry arrives 365 days a year on the hour,” he says. “We really want to make sure that we’re there when it’s cold and rainy and locals want somewhere to go.”
That dual ambition of show-stopping venue and neighbourhood local shapes everything from pricing to the rotating seasonal menu. It’s also what makes Onda, for Jaques, more than just a job.
“We really want the menu to fill in that vibe,” he says. “When people come in, all their expectations of what they want to see – fresh oysters, mussels, school prawns – they get all that stuff. It’s fun, it’s family-friendly, but it’s also really beautiful cooking.”
Onda Sorrento is open Monday to Sunday, 7:30am until late (last orders 8pm).
